What is Maslow's hierarchy of needs? The pyramid explained

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory of human motivation proposed by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1943. It says people are driven by five kinds of need, roughly in order: physiological needs such as food and sleep, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization, becoming what you are capable of. As the more basic needs are largely met, the higher ones take over as motivators. It is usually drawn as a pyramid, though Maslow himself never drew one.

In short

• Maslow's five levels are physiological, safety, love, esteem and self-actualization, and he argued that a need mostly stops driving behavior once it is reasonably satisfied.
• He said the order was "not nearly as rigid" as the theory might suggest: people move between levels and are motivated by several at once.
• The pyramid was added by others, from 1960. Later research supports the idea that these needs are universal more than it supports a strict order.

What are the five levels?

Maslow set out the theory in a paper called A Theory of Human Motivation, published in Psychological Review. He named five groups of "basic needs".

Level	Maslow's name	What it covers	Example of the need driving behavior
1	Physiological	Food, water, sleep, warmth, air	A starving person thinks of little but food
2	Safety	Physical security, order, health, a predictable life	Saving money, keeping a stable job, avoiding danger
3	Love	Affection, belonging, friends, family, a partner	Feeling the absence of friends after moving cities
4	Esteem	Self-respect, competence, and the respect of others	Wanting recognition for good work
5	Self-actualization	Becoming what one is capable of becoming	An artist who must paint, whether or not it pays

Maslow's line for the top level is the one most quoted: "What a man can be, he must be." He meant it individually. For one person self-actualization might be raising children well, for another athletics or invention.

He called the first four deficiency needs in later writing: their lack creates tension, and meeting them brings relief. Self-actualization he saw as a growth need, which doesn't go quiet when satisfied but grows the more it is pursued. Late in life he suggested a further level beyond it, self-transcendence, devotion to something beyond the self.

How does the hierarchy work?

The central idea is what Maslow called prepotency. When a need is badly unmet, it dominates. A need that is largely satisfied stops being a strong motivator, and the next one up comes to the fore. Someone who has enough to eat stops organizing their day around food and starts to care more about security, and once safe, about belonging.

The key word is "largely". Maslow did not think one level had to be 100% satisfied before the next appeared. In the 1943 paper he offered what he called "arbitrary figures for the sake of illustration": the average person in his society might be satisfied about 85% in physiological needs, 70% in safety, 50% in love, 40% in self-esteem and 10% in self-actualization.

A worked example with Maslow's own numbers

Those figures make the theory more concrete than the pyramid does. Read them as how much of each need is still unmet, and they say this average person is driven a little by hunger and comfort (15% unmet), more by worries about security (30% unmet), a great deal by wanting love and belonging (50% unmet) and esteem (60% unmet), and has barely begun on self-actualization (90% unmet).

So several needs are active at once, in different strengths. The person isn't "on" one level. Now take away their job. Safety satisfaction might drop from 70% to 30%, and worry about money and the future becomes the strongest pull, crowding out concern for status at work. When they find a new job, safety recovers and esteem and belonging rise back to the top of their concerns. That shifting mix, not a climb up a staircase, is closer to what Maslow described.

He also listed exceptions. Some people value esteem above love. Some creative people pursue their work despite poverty. Some idealists give up everything, even food, for a cause. "It is not nearly as rigid as we may have implied," he wrote.

Did Maslow draw the pyramid?

No. Maslow wrote about a hierarchy, but he never drew it as a pyramid in his published work. The management historians Todd Bridgman, Stephen Cummings and John Ballard searched Maslow's writings and management textbooks for its origin, and reported in 2019 that the pyramid first appeared in a 1960 article in Business Horizons by a consulting psychologist, Charles McDermid, as Scientific American recounted. It spread through management textbooks and training courses.

The pyramid shape implies things Maslow didn't say: that each level is a solid block you complete before moving up, and that few people ever reach the narrow top. Bridgman and his colleagues suggested a ladder would have been a fairer picture. A set of overlapping waves, each need rising and falling in strength, may be fairer still.

What does the research say?

The theory is influential, but it is a model, not an established law of behavior. Early tests were unkind to the strict version. A 1976 review by Mahmoud Wahba and Lawrence Bridwell found little consistent evidence that needs fall into Maslow's five groups or are satisfied in his order.

A larger test came in 2011, when Louis Tay and Ed Diener used Gallup World Poll data from people in 123 countries. They found, as the University of Illinois reported, that the needs Maslow described were universal and that meeting them went with greater well-being. Basic needs such as food and shelter were most closely linked to how people rated their lives overall, while social support, respect, autonomy and mastery were more closely linked to enjoying life day to day. But the order mattered little: people reported good relationships and a sense of fulfillment even when their basic and safety needs were not fully met. Diener's summary was that "Maslow's theory is largely correct", though not in its strict ranking.

Still argued

Psychologists still disagree about what the hierarchy is worth. Its defenders say it captures something real and universal: people do prioritize survival when it is threatened, and the needs Maslow listed hold up across cultures. Its critics say the ranking is not well supported, that the top level is hard to define or measure, and that the list reflects the individualist values of mid-century America. Some have rebuilt it. In 2010, Douglas Kenrick and colleagues proposed an evolutionary version with overlapping levels that replaces self-actualization with finding a mate, keeping one, and raising children.

Why does it still matter?

Even with its weaknesses, the hierarchy gives people a simple, memorable way to ask what is driving someone at a given moment. Teachers use it to remember that a hungry or frightened child struggles to learn. Managers use it to see that pay alone won't keep people who feel disrespected. Designers and social workers use it to put the urgent before the aspirational.

The model's best lesson is often the one the pyramid hides: needs overlap. Someone can be broke and loved, or comfortable and lonely. Questions of belonging run through love, and questions of esteem through impostor syndrome, where people who have earned respect still feel they haven't. For where the theory sits in the science of the mind, see what psychology is, and for the biology under motivation, how the brain works.

Check yourself

• Without looking back: what did Maslow mean when he said a satisfied need is no longer a motivator?
• Using Maslow's illustrative percentages, explain why a person can be driven by several levels of need at the same time.
• What did the 2011 study of 123 countries support in Maslow's theory, and what did it fail to support?

Sources

• A Theory of Human Motivation — A. H. Maslow, Psychological Review, 1943, via Classics in the History of Psychology, York University
• Who Created Maslow's Iconic Pyramid? — Scientific American, 2019
• Researchers look for ingredients of happiness around the world — University of Illinois via EurekAlert, 2011
• Renovating the Pyramid of Needs: Contemporary Extensions Built Upon Ancient Foundations — Kenrick et al., Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2010